


Hunter

by otherstuff



Series: The Impact of Childhood [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: FTM Dean Winchester, Gen, Revenge, Trans Dean Winchester, i know it's probably been a long time since anyone's watched those seasons, it still impacts the characters though, so i do my best to remind people what's going on in those episodes, the author doesn't know what he's doing, the noncon is offscreen, this mostly takes place during season 2 but references season 1 and their childhood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 09:00:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28348791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otherstuff/pseuds/otherstuff
Summary: Dean has been through a lot, but he's a hunter, that's to be expected.And what do hunters do better than hunt monsters?((Set in the same universe as "Worry" and references the events there.))
Series: The Impact of Childhood [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2076093
Kudos: 12





	Hunter

**Author's Note:**

> Season 2 Episode 14: Sam and Dean investigate a string of murders where the murderers claim they were influenced to do so by the command of an angel.
> 
> Dean, on the other hand, only acts on his own orders.

Sometimes, the thing Dean hated most about the fact that monsters were real was the additional fact that, out of all of the things he could have been born as, he was left as a human. It was hard to not have that thought every once in a while about how much easier it would be to fight back against the night if only he’d had a werewolf’s teeth, a ghoul’s speed, or even a demon’s strength.

These moments of envy dipped after he met people like Gordon and the vampires who rightfully feared him, and they became nonexistent when Sam started to question whether or not  _ he _ was human at all.

Some would argue, if they knew a bit more about Dean, that there were other things he personally could be complaining about not being born as than something with teeth or claws. That was something Dean could never agree on. He wasn’t born a man, but no one was. He was born a child, and being a man was something he’d grown into. It was something he’d earned.

“Earning” manhood was something every boy that walked around all too proud of the bits between their legs should have to do.

A child, like the child Dean had been, could grow into many things. A man or a woman are only two of them- subcategories of a bigger thing called a “person.” There was another category separate of them both: Monster. This was a different kind of monster- one that replaced tact or speed with knives or the superhuman strength of a demon with the very human crutch of finding like-minded monsters they could blend with.

It was lucky that Dean could almost always look right through and find the person underneath.

Maybe that was why this string of “angel killings” had shaken him up so badly. The conviction in Sam’s eyes when he saw the “sign” behind the seemingly-normal looking man underneath the streetlight looked all too familiar. Sam would hate to hear it, but he really did look like their father in that moment. At least, his eyes did.

It was an unearned vengefulness, as if they plainly read, “I’m going to kill him,” without the words being spoken.

He’d seen those words on John’s face before Dean’s own had been pressed into the front of John’s shirt. It had smelled of cigarettes and the cold, the back of his jacket stiff and chalky as Dean scrambled against it in a smothering hug.

It used to make him sick to remember that night in such clarity. Now, as a man, he wished to regain some of that lost knowledge. The memories had gone fuzzy at parts, shadow clawing at the edges and crying out as it took over more and more of that night. It wasn’t the last night his life was in danger. If he wanted to be less obtuse, it wasn’t even the last night he was being held down and challenged by a monster who thought they deserved him.

He couldn’t remember Owen’s face anymore- whether he’d smirked or sneered in disgust. He couldn’t remember the name of the boy whose mother owned the motel- he only remembered the dark look in her eyes as she wordlessly let them slip out without charging them for the two rooms and the nights they’d spent there. He couldn’t remember the exact way he’d been held down anymore- just the pressure on his arms, the memory of which made him cry when his father roused him from a nightmare years later by shaking him on the upper arm against the mattress.

John’s eyes looked the same even then.

Dean could remember John from that night, but maybe that was because John never changed.

The look in John’s eyes- the look in Sam’s eyes- the justified and barely contained rage that plumed from his irate stare brought Dean back to when he was working alone. Somewhere between leaving John and getting sick on chloroform while trying to build up some immunity to it- something Bobby would later smack him for only after shoving a tissue up his nose to stop the blood- Dean had seen that look in his own eyes in bar bathroom mirrors and over motel sinks.

Unlike John- who had made his reports only to realize they couldn’t stick around to press charges proper under false names and that he’d have to turn tail with his boys in tow- or Sam- who Dean would make sure wouldn’t be the one to follow Streetlight tonight, Dean had resolved that intense stare before.

He did it with the bullet he’d shot through a truckstop stall after trailing the bastard from the same bar he’d met Dean at the night before. He did it with a knife outside of a club while the woman he’d seen being pulled from the dancefloor and into the back alley weakly protested and finally passed out from either stress or alcohol. He did it with his fists, his teeth, and no lycanthropy to help him when he woke up under a stranger who’d incorrectly assumed he was stronger.

Dean hunted monsters.

It was just part of the job, though he hadn’t found the trail of one quite like this since he’d pulled Sam back into the fray.

It was a part he was glad to play as he locked Sam out of the impala and left him outside of the store with a bootleg spell kit.

“You’re not killing anyone, Sam. I got this guy. Go do the seance.”

He’d meant it, and he didn’t regret saying it as he pulled away just in time to see the fire fade from Sam’s eyes in the rearview mirror into something more akin to betrayal. Gordon had his vampires, Bobby had his demons. These kinds of monsters were  _ Dean’s _ specialty. If this Streetlight was a killer like the other two in this town had been- if this ghost was right, Dean would be the one to take care of it.

So he tailed the stranger’s car, intent on sitting outside as long as it took. He saw himself as a safer be than Sam anyway. He wasn’t biased by an “angel’s voice” like his brother was. If Streetlight had to die, it’d be because he deserved it. 

Dean certainly wasn’t biased when he saw a woman enter the stranger’s car, nor did he imagine the smirk spreading across Streetlight’s face as he closed the door behind her.

The tensing in his shoulders and the way his knuckles grew white as his grip tightened on the steering wheel had to be from something else.

He absently turned the rearview mirror away as he drove, not wanting to meet his own eyes in the reflection.

He could feel anticipation flood him as he turned onto the eerie street and found that he’d lost Streetlight.

_ “Damn it!” _

It had gotten away from him.

He searched the back roads for tail lights or the shape of the car’s cab, stopping when he finally found them- their shadows stark against the almost foggy car window. He could see one hand raised between them from the driver’s side as Dean had already slid from the impala with nothing in his clenched fists.

The woman screamed before he could get to them, her denials sharper and louder than the drugged woman outside of the club even before he shattered the car window with his elbow on the first try. Reaching inside, Dean wrenched Streetlight towards him and slammed his fist downward before bashing his head against the steering wheel.

He probably would have carried on and finished the job right then if not for the woman, still so unlike the one from the club, still crying as she uselessly tried to force her door open. He scrambled with her, unlocking the car from the driver’s side and sliding over the hood to meet her on the sidewalk.

“You okay? Are you okay!?”

Still sobbing, she managed a “Thank God” after a choked noise that could have been a “yes.”

In the moment between continuing to talk her down from her panic and returning to the still-breathing body in the car, it roared back to life and whipped out from behind them, leaving Dean to curse.

He was already halfway back to his car with the woman behind him as he uselessly told her to call the police after a handful of half-hearted attempts to ensure that she could be left alone.

When the impala hit the turn after the speeding taillights, he became possessed by something deeper than vengeance. He needed to see this hunt to the end, and he needed to be able to give this woman justice.

This was for her.

That thought ran through him and weighed his foot against the gas pedal like a bag of sand, and it didn’t let him ease up for even a moment as Streetlight led him on a chase down the broken streets and around cars and even trees. Each turn was a threat to his life, and he didn’t care. He only came to a stop when the other car did.

It took a moment to understand why Streetlight had stopped at all, but it probably had something to do with the pipe sticking through his windshield. As Dean neared, he saw that it was sticking through a bit more than that.

The monster had been slain, but not by Dean’s hand.

“Oh my  _ God,”  _ a voice gasped behind him, and the turned to see a portly man pull himself from the truck. “Oh my  _ God,  _ I- I didn’t see him coming- I was half way through the intersection and- and he just didn’t look like he was going to stop! I tried to get out of the way and- oh my God, oh my  _ God!”  _

He was hysterical, and not of the particular breed Dean was usually best at handling.

“It’s not like you meant to do it,” he spat, regretting it as soon as the man actually stopped talking and locked his wide eyes onto Dean. “Shit.” He scratched at the back of his head and again backed up to his car. “Look just, just call the police,” he said, just as uselessly as he had before. “I- you- you’re fine. It’ll work out. It’s not your fault.”

The driver nodded slowly, peeling off his hat to wipe at his forehead with the back of his wrist.

“I mean it,” Dean called as he still moved to his car. “It’ll work out.”

If the man said anything after him or asked any questions, Dean didn’t hear them as he pulled himself back into the impala and pulled the most illegal U-turn possible to get out of there.

He considered stopping by where he’d left that frantic woman with the loosest offer of help he’d ever given, only to decide against it just as he drove past the mouth to the road. He didn’t really know where he was going until he pulled back into the parking lot for the motel he and Sam were staying at.

Deftly, he switched off the engine, stepped out of the impala, and locked its doors behind him.

His heavy feet weighed him to the earth at the end of shaky legs that threatened to give out on him as he pushed the door open and squeezed his way inside, only stalling when he locked eyes with Sam.

He averted his gaze.

“How was your day?” he asked.

Sam took a moment to choke out the words, “You were right,” and maybe Dean shouldn’t have been so surprised to hear it, but he was. “It wasn’t an angel. It was Gregory.”

Dean took a pull from his flask without another word, offering it to Sam after the fact. He saw his brother sigh as he sealed the bottle again- a tiredness settling over his shoulders as he talked about loneliness, the weight of what they do crashing over him, and how apparently the belief that someone watching over them would make it all easier.

Dean, who couldn’t stand the idea that someone who’d watched over him all his life would let it turn out like this, could only offer “I’m watching out for you.”

“Yeah, I know you are.” Those words cut him in a way he couldn’t explain, and what followed was rubbing salt into the wound. “But you’re just one person, Dean.”

His eyes weren’t angry or distant now. They were honest and glassy with unshed tears, and Dean had to avoid looking at Sam headon to avoid the tell-tale burning sensation behind his eyes.

Sam continued, “And I needed to think that there was something else watching too, you know? Some… higher power. Some greater good.”

Only when Sam looked away could Dean examine his brother’s face. His firm jaw clenched with the same frustration that brought those tears to well in his eyes.

“And that maybe…”

With more care than Dean had ever put into anything, he softly asked, “‘Maybe’ what?”

The question birthed a cruel smile to dart across Sam’s lips.

“Maybe I could be saved.”

It was hard to tell if he was crying or not, and he dared not swipe at his cheeks to check as he again looked anywhere but his brother’s face. Sam laughed it off, though Dean knew there was a double meaning to his words. To be saved, in the way everyone who believes in God thinks of him saving them, must have been far from Sam’s mind at this point. But the desire to be saved physically, as he must have done a thousand times in his life and he’ll do a thousand more, permeated the sentence and left Dean wondering what his real bitch was with the hypothetical man upstairs.

He remembered the preacher who’d physically saved him and claimed it to be an act of God, and he remembered the man who’d lost his life in exchange. Sam had pulled out the news clippings of a gay teacher and a women’s rights advocate, and Dean still didn’t know which one would be a funnier sacrifice in  _ his  _ place. Neither would be funny in the traditional sense, but more so in that twisted way that seemed to follow him around.

How could God let His name be used like that?

How could a God that was watching over them let this happen to them?

How could he rely on God the way Sam did and take comfort in that God after everything they’ve been through- after everything  _ he’s _ been through?

The woman cried “Thank God” when he saved her, the driver had sobbed for his God to answer him when he was lost like a baby crying for a bottle- Dean was better than that. He’d never stoop to that.

It was hard to keep up that same exterior and that same coldness when it was his own brother lost right next to him.

If he needed something more than Dean…

So he told Sam that Streetlight had been every bit a monster that Gregory had said he was, though he couldn’t stomach the memory of reaching into a car full of the same haze that haunted the edges of his highschool memories. Instead, he skipped to the important thing- his righteous death at the hands of the most Final Destination bullshit he’d ever seen.

Knowing those words wouldn’t bring Sam comfort as much as they would piercing the air between them and cause it to rupture noisily and messily, he instead said, “I mean.... I don’t know what to call it.”

After a pause, Sam asked, “What? Dean, what did you see?”

“Maybe,” he paused to lick his lips, “God’s will.”

He takes it, and Dean is happy with that.

If Sam needs something more than his big brother can provide, maybe Dean can still manage to give him that.


End file.
